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Brussels – The European Commission is gearing up to exempt new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from current environmental rules, Greenpeace has warned. The EU Commission today released a report on new genetic modification techniques such as CRISPR/Cas, which concludes that more permissive rules may be needed to allow GMOs produced with these techniques.

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Kevin Stairs, Greenpeace EU GMO policy adviser, said: “The EU has a responsibility to protect the rights of farmers to choose what they plant and for people to choose what they eat, and to protect the environment and biodiversity from potential harm from new GMOs. The EU Commission and national governments must respect the precautionary principle and the European Court of Justice’s decision – GMOs by another name are still GMOs, and must be treated as such under the law.”

European Commission backtracks and opens the door to the deregulation of new GMOs, putting citizens and farmers’ freedom of choice at risk

Slow Food is deeply alarmed by the European Commission’s conclusions from the study on “new genomic techniques” which opens the door to the deregulation of new GMOs, ignoring the precautionary principle.

“Through the EU Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy, the European Commission committed to accelerate the transition towards a truly sustainable food system. By suggesting that EU GMO rules must be re-opened, the Commission is falling into the trap of pursuing techno-fixes rather than investing in and promoting agroecological systems that benefit farmers, local communities, and the wider environment,” says Marta Messa, director of Slow Food Europe.

As the European Commission is considering how to regulate genetically modified (GM) products created with new GM technology, Eleonora Evi argues that the EU must continue to label all GM food as such, regardless of the technology used to produce it.

Eleonora Evi is a Green MEP.

A recent EU-wide opinion poll commissioned by the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament shows that the vast majority (86%) of Europeans who have heard of genetically modified (GM) crops want food produced from these plants to be labelled as such.

The majority (68%) of respondents who have heard of new GM techniques, such as CRISPR, want food produced with these techniques also labelled as GM.

The poll confirms the Commission’s view that Europeans want detailed information about the food they buy, be it on the nutritional quality or the place and method of production.

The Commission has announced mandatory, front-of-pack nutritional information and said it would develop a “sustainable food-labelling framework” that also covers the environmental and social aspects of food production.

Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), women and farmers associations in Katsina State, have urged the Federal Government not to allow Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into the country.

This was contained in a letter, which Mrs Gloria Okon, submitted to the Special Adviser to Gov Aminu Masari on Agriculture, Dr Abba Abdullahi, on behalf of the organisations on Thursday in Katsina.

Other associations were Women and Children Life Advancement Initiative (WACLAI), Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) and Cotton Producers and Merchants Association of Nigeria, among others.

The European Commission today published a study, commissioned by the Council of the EU, on “new genomic techniques”, in which it suggests that current GMO legislation is not “adapted to the scientific and technological progress” of new genetic modification techniques. ECVC denounces this attempt by the European Commission to cover up its inaction on the implementation of the current GMO legislation, and also denounces the considerable influence of agribusiness lobbies on the results of this study.

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The European Commission has announced the opening of a public consultation to explore policy options in the coming months. For ECVC, the Commission must quickly review its message in order to open a public debate based on facts and not mistruths.

In order to guarantee the right of farmers to freely choose and to have transparent access to information about the crops they grow, in addition to guaranteeing the right of citizens to know what kind of products end up on their plates, ECVC opposes any modification of the current European regulation. We reject the appropriation of the food chain by a handful of multinationals as a result of the patents they register on these GMOs. For this reason, and by virtue of the precautionary principle, all GMOs must remain regulated by EU GMO law, as confirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 25 July 2018.

Early in 2021, DEFRA ran a consultation on gene editing, focusing in large part on whether gene-edited organisms (GEOs) ought to be distinguished from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in law, allowing gene-edited technologies to be liberated from GMO regulations. DEFRA stated in its press release that these new gene-editing technologies will ‘help the UK reach its vital climate and biodiversity goals in a safe and sustainable way.’ But what guarantees can we have that this will be the primary goal of the sector?

This blog considers whether deregulation of genetic editing could be yet another example of policy bias in favour of large business and technological quick-fixes over more sustainable, more democratic alternatives.

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If DEFRA’s ambition is to reach the UK’s biodiversity and climate goals, ceding more power to agribusiness is neither the only, nor the most obvious solution. A transition, instead, to more agroecological farming relies on giving power back to the farmers to be stewards of agrobiodiversity and of nature’s vital genetic resources.

Bella Driessen is Research Officer at the Food Research Collaboration, based at the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London.

A coalition of non-government organizations have called on state governments to ban Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and effect the repeal of the National Biosafety Management Agency Act which came into force in 2015, and amended in 2019.

The group led by Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and GMO- Free Nigeria Alliance made the call in a petition submitted to governors of no fewer 10 states on Tuesday, April 27, 2021., expressing their concern over the fact that the food and agricultural systems are being threatened by the unrestrained release of GMOs into the country.

The coalition comprises environmentalists, farmers, scientists, labor activists, youths, women, medical practitioners, lawyers, and civil society organisations , and the petition was submitted to the governors of Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Edo, Enugu, Kano, Katsina, and Lagos states as well as Federal Capital Territory(FCT).

Bombshell finding could end EU authorization of glyphosate. Report: Claire Robinson

Glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup activate mechanisms involved in cancer development, including DNA damage – and these effects occur at doses assumed by regulators to have no adverse effects, a new study shows. The DNA damage was caused by oxidative stress, a destructive imbalance in the body that can cause a long list of diseases.

The study also found that the isolated active ingredient of Roundup – glyphosate alone – damaged DNA. This finding, according to the EU’s pesticide law, should result in a ban on glyphosate and all its formulations. In addition, the results obtained in the study could strengthen the legal cases of the cancer sufferers in the US who are suing Bayer/Monsanto because they believe that exposure to Roundup caused their disease. Three such cases have already been decided in favour of the plaintiffs.

The European Commission is likely to publish a study on gene editing this Thursday that is widely expected to argue for deregulating gene editing and other new GM techniques. If it does, it will almost certainly be underpinned by claims made in reports by the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), both of which call on the EU Commission to end the regulation of gene-edited organisms and also older-style transgenic GMOs. EASAC's report explicitly endorsed the Leopoldina statement.

But a damning critique of both statements has just been published by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) and Critical Scientists Switzerland (CSS).

In a press release about its report, ENSSER stated, "The EASAC-endorsed Leopoldina statement, demanding that the EU stops regulating ‘genome-edited’ plants, represents the narrow interests of ‘genome editors’ but it does not demonstrate the scientific objectivity or balance required, nor does it represent any consensus in the scientific community at large beyond the self-interested advocates."

A vast variety of soy GM events has entered the market, and analytical testing approaches need to be updated to cover these. It is important to keep in mind that cultivation status of GMOs is subjected to the respective national regulatory framework.

The main reason is that common generic markers used for detection of previous varieties, e.g. the CaMV 35S-Promoter and NOS-Terminator, are not present in many of the new and future varieties. As a result, no exclusive testing regime exists any longer, since a multitude of different solutions are equally valid.

For actors in the supply chain it is becoming increasingly difficult to assess whether a GMO test is really sufficient and therefore rely on a competent laboratory partner more than ever.